Other Projects

Read about Bill Mantlo’s tragedy; donate to his ongoing care

Posted on by

By Greg Pak
LifeHealthPro’s Bill Coffin has written a tremendously moving article about the great comic book writer Bill Mantlo, who was struck by a hit-and-run driver in 1992 and suffered traumatic brain injury. Please, go read the article, then click the button below to send your donation to Bill’s brother Mike for Bill’s ongoing care.

Bill Mantlo has had a huge influence on me as a writer and reader. His “Micronauts” stories blew my mind as a kid and his “Incredible Hulk” run laid the groundwork for the themes I explored my five-and-a-half year run with the character. In the afterward to “Incredible Hulk” #635, I dedicated my run to Mantlo, and a couple of months ago devoted my Newsarama column to singing his praises and letting folks know how to donate to his ongoing care.
Thank you so much, Bill Coffin and LifeHealthPro, for shining a light on someone who brought so much joy to so many people.
And here’s a note from Bill’s brother Mike, reprinted from that Newsarama column:

First off, I send out a big THANK YOU to everyone that has helped support Bill over these past 19 years (!). Every donation, no matter how big or small, and every card or letter is greatly appreciated. Bill’s condition remains the same (he suffers severe cognitive impairments, anger, and depression), and these factors keep him very much isolated from “the outside world.” Aside from my visits, and the kindness of my beautiful wife and some of the attendants at the nursing home/rehabilitation facility he resides in, his contact with other human beings is virtually non-existent. But the support and encouragement of fans, and industry professionals like yourself, helps to bring a little ray of sunlight into his dark and dreary days. When I (or my wife) engage Bill in conversation, his spirit emerges and is as strong and pure as it ever was! So, once again, I can’t thank ALL of you enough!! I strongly believe in the power of practicing random acts of kindness, and with that belief I hope that ALL of your kindnesses will be returned to you many, many times over!
Cards, letters or donations to Bill Mantlo can be sent to:
Mike Mantlo
26364 East Pintail Road
Long Neck, DE 19966
Please make out any checks to “Michael Mantlo” — Bill’s legal guardian.

Greg Pak’s Centaur Crossing: All Hail the Public Library!

Posted on by

In his latest column for Newsarama, Greg Pak praises the public libraries he visited as a kid in Dallas and celebrates the children’s literature that blew his mind. If you remember “It’s Like This, Cat” or “Taran Wanderer,” you’re going to love this.
Click here to read the whole thing.
And click here to buy tickets for Pak’s appearance at the Friends of the Dallas Public Library benefit dinner this Friday.

Donate $20 to Japan relief charity of your choice, get “Vision Machine” trade!

Posted on by

UPDATE 4/1/11 4:15 PM: The tally is now $4011 for Japanese relief. I’ll keep sending “Vision Machine” trades for a while yet, so keep on donating!
UPDATE: Final Japan relief report: the original goal was $1000. We raised $3142. You are all amazing. I’m still giving out free trades to folks who donate, so keep it coming!
UPDATE: Friday, 10:31 am. We just hit $1786. Love you guys. New goal: $2500 by midnight. I DON’T THINK YOU CAN DO IT! PROVE ME WRONG!
UPDATE 5: Friday, 1 am – and we’ve hit $1502! New goal – $1750 by the end of Friday!
UPDATE 4: It’s Thursday night and you’ve blown way past the $1250 goal — we’re up to $1417! Let’s make a new goal of $1500 by the end of Friday!
UPDATE 3: You guys are amazing. We hit $1037 Thursday morning. New goal: $1250 by the end of Friday!
UPDATE 2: Up to $827!
UPDATE 1: We’ve raised $707 so far — let’s see if we can hit $1000 by the end of Friday!
By Greg Pak
After a few days of trying to figure out how to help raise some dollars for Japan, I’ve come up with what I hope is a simple plan. Here’s how it works:
Donate $20 to any charity doing relief work in Japan.
Then send an email with your US mailing address to japan at pakbuzz dot com. In your email, tell me what charity you donated to and confirm that you are 18 or over. (And sorry for limiting it to US mailing addresses — little to complicated for me to mail large numbers of packages overseas right now.)
And I’ll send you a free “Vision Machine” trade paperback!
The charity is your choice. $20 minimum donation. If you tell me you donated, I’ll believe you and send you a trade – honor system, folks!
Finally, please include your Twitter handle in your email if you’d like a shout out online!
Many thanks, all the best and happy donating!

Massive Greg Pak interview at Newsarama’s “Writer’s Workshop”

Posted on by

David Pepose has conducted what may be the longest interview ever of filmmaker and comics writer Greg Pak for his “Writer’s Workshop” column at Newsarama. Here’s an excerpt:

I should say this too, all this stuff I’m saying is stuff that I know, but that I have to struggle everyday to actually implement it, you know what I mean? [Laughs.] It’s an ongoing struggle to have the discipline to make these stories work the way they really should. To cut out the stuff that doesn’t belong, and to invest the stuff that should be there with real emotional truth rather than manufactured shortcuts, and to find the most dramatically compelling fashion to tell the story rather than just the easiest way to tell the story. These are ongoing challenges that I wrestle with every single day, trying to do the best I can and trying to figure out better ways to do it.

Click here to read the whole thing.

Centaur-Me

Posted on by

By Greg Pak
Say, hypothetically, I were about to start writing an internet column entitled “Centaur Corner”… you think someone out there in Internetville could draw a better centaur-me than this?
If you’re up for the challenge, post your image somewhere and ping me on Twitter with the link.
YOU CAN DO IT!

“The Game” – a short story by Greg Pak, age 13

Posted on by

By Greg Pak
I decided I was going to be a writer at the age of nine. So throughout grade school, middle school, high school and college, I wrote constantly — first with $1.49 Shaeffer fountain pens on three hole paper in blue denim binders, later on my mom’s massive Selectric typewriter and on the Mac Plus with the awesome 50mb Total Peripherals external hard drive that I lugged back and forth from college.
While poking through boxes in storage over the last few months, I found a number of files and notebooks containing hundreds of pages of these old stories. And, unsurprisingly, most of them are kind of fun but pretty horrible. But here and there something… almost… good glimmered through. Eventually, I’m hoping to release a ebook anthology of the best of these stories with commentary as a window into one writer’s beginnings.
But in the meantime, just for kicks, here’s the best short story I wrote during my thirteenth year on the planet, when Ray Bradbury was my literary hero, people still called Asian people “Orientals,” and Defender Stargate was the most awesome video game anyone had ever seen.
Enjoy!

THE GAME
By Greg Pak
05.16.1982

“Hey, Jackie!”
A small skeletal boy ran from a large cardboard box to the tall girl.
“Jackie!” he shouted. “Are we gonna play the game today? We gonna play the game?”
“Maybe,” said the tall girl curtly.
The boy silenced and fell into step behind her. They walked on through the charred field, passing the scraggly trees and piles of broken down automobiles and derelict washing machines.
“Well, I sure hope we do,” said the small boy, kicking the cracked ground. “There ain’t nothing else to do around here. Nothin’.”
“Shut up,” said the girl.
The boy did.
Soon they reached a red car. It was only a little rusted, and its shiny paint glinted in the burning sun. It was much better off than the others around it and stood alone, like a regal king surrounded by peasants.
“David!” cried the girl. “We’re going to play the game!”
A short, fat boy threw open the car door and puffed to the side to stand at attention. A long, muscular leg passed from the blackness, fluidly followed by the rest of the boy. The brown feet lifted dust from the ground as the tall black boy shaded his face with a hand, squinting.
“Good,” he said.

Continue reading →

Pak Talks Comics: How many issues in “Chaos War”?

Posted on by

A quick edition of Pak Talks Comics to clear up a bit of confusion:
Joseph W.: Hello there Mr. Pak, I like to say that I’m a new fan of you works. I’m currently reading the great Chaos War event. However I noticed an error on the front cover. On the top corner the issue number says that it is issue 3 of 4, yet the prior issues and even in the check list of the Chaos War events says that it is a 5 issue series. Is this a small error and to be ignored or did a scheduling incident occur and you can only do a 4 issue series instead?
Pak: Thanks for the kind words, Joseph! Please rest assured that the “4” is a typo. The series runs for five issues.
Click here to submit your own question to “Pak Talks Comics.”

Inspiration, motivation, and making a fool of yourself

Posted on by

Another transcribed tweet session by Greg Pak
On Saturday I had the great pleasure of receiving the Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival’s Emerging Artist Award and participating in a “Conversation with Greg Pak” event moderated by Loraine Morrill. The conversation and Q&A session were a blast — but afterwards I realized I hadn’t fully answered one of the attendee’s questions, so last night I tried to finish the thoughts on the Twitter.
Read on for the transcript:

Had a fantastic time at the @PAAFF “Conversation with Greg Pak” event last night – thanks to Michael & Joe & Loraine!
But I realized I didn’t completely finish answering one person’s question. She was asking about inspiration/motivation.
I talked about the constant deadlines as a comic book writer being great for discipline. Can’t have the luxury of waiting for inspiration. [Comic book writers] have to learn how to make it happen, no matter what, in order to make those deadlines. Which is actually a great thing. Without deadlines, it’s far too easy to moon around with a creative project indefinitely.
So what I forgot to mention yesterday was that it’s possible to create deadlines for yourself to motivate yourself to finish creative projects. Just a few ways…

  1. Form a group with friends to critique each others’ work. Good kick in the pants to at least complete first drafts of projects.
  2. Find contests to enter. Those contests will have deadlines that you can’t miss. (But always carefully read competition rules/regs. Don’t want to sign away rights without realizing it!)
  3. Take a shot at stuff like Ntn’l Graphic Novel Writing Month or http://24hourcomicsday.com/

I haven’t done those myself, but I’ve done the film world equivalent with a 48 hour film at @HamptonsFilm a few years ago.
Finishing projects is absolutely key. And here’s another crazy thought: embrace creative failure and humiliation.
When I was doing improv comedy, I had a friend who said the number one rule was to be completely willing to make a total fool of yourself.
Finishing those early projects is key because they’re going to be flawed and bad and we need to learn by seeing how people react to them.
It’s a cliche, but it’s true – we often learn more from our creative failures than our creative successes.
We might not intellectually know why a creative project succeeds – we just managed to hit the right notes without thinking it all through.
But when I screw something up, boy, do I take the time to think it through and learn from it.
It’s also critical to develop the ability to keep going in the face of creative failure. Most people quit. Sometimes the most talented quit.
The ones who make it have one thing in common – they didn’t quit.
And finally, it’s critical to embrace making a fool of yourself because every awesome creative project initially sounded totally moronic.
Particularly now, it’s breathtakingly/heartbreakingly easy to make anyone’s story sound stupid – in 140 characters or less! 😉
The relevant song for all of this: “They All Laughed.” Here’s part of the Louis Armstrong version.
Which brings me to my recently rediscovered 1980 centaur novella. 😉
Okay, y’all, thanks for putting up with all this yapping. And thanks again to everyone who came to the @PAAFF and @BNWCOMICS events!

Support Pakistan flood relief by buying signed Greg Pak comics!

Posted on by


By Greg Pak
According to the Daily Herald, the UN says the Pakistan flood is the largest humanitarian crisis ever.
Now you can help support Pakistan flood relief — and get some signed comics! I’m auctioning off twenty grab bags of signed comics via eBay’s Giving Works program for just $29.99 a pop. All proceeds go to Doctors Without Borders for Pakistan flood relief. You get five comics in each grab bag.
Please feel free to buy one today!

Donate to Pakistan flood relief, get free signed comic book

Posted on by

By Greg Pak
The Pakistan floods have killed thousands and put millions in danger. According to UNICEF, 3.5 million kids are in desperate need in Pakistan. Meanwhile, donations for Pakistan flood relief have totaled less than a third of what was raised for Haiti – for a crisis with ten times as many victims.
It’s incredibly easy to help. If you have a cellphone, just text “FLOODS” to 864233 to donate $10. The money goes to UNICEF.
As an added incentive, once you’ve donated, just email pakistanhelp@pakbuzz.com with your mailing address and I’ll send you a free signed comic book. (You must be 18 or over and I can only ship to the US.)
C’mon, superheroes. Let’s see what you can do.